Being a digital marketing specialist means living and breathing data.

From SEOs to outreach managers, the ability to quickly and efficiently operate with large volumes of data is key to staying ahead of the curve.

In this article, you will learn three powerful Excel hacks to up your data management game.

Extract the First Name from the Full Name

Every digital marketer worth their salt knows that personalization can open many doors that lead to good PR opportunities.

For that reason, it’s critical to address your prospects by name in your outreach campaigns.

Marketers typically rely on third-party databases to pull the contact data in bulk. But what if your dataset contains the full name in one cell, and you need to extract just the first name?

This is where Excel comes into play. Provided your list of names starts in cell A2 as in the screenshot below, to extract the first name from the full name, copy the following formula into B2:

=LEFT(A2, SEARCH(" ", A2)-1)

Once there, double-click on the fill handle to copy the formula down.

The way this formula works is pretty straightforward.

The LEFT function extracts a certain number of characters from the beginning of a text string while the SEARCH function locates the whitespace between the first and last name to specify where the LEFT function should stop pulling characters.

Categorize Your Link-Building Database

If you’ve been playing the link-building game for long enough, chances are that your database of link-building opportunities contains thousands of websites systematized across multiple categories—from directories and blogs to industry publications.

But how can you quickly zoom out and assess the structure of the entire database?

Our next Excel hack makes it possible for you to stay focused on the big picture.

To count the number of URLs that fall into a given category, type this function into E2 as shown in the screenshot below:

=COUNTIF(A2:A6, “Directory”)

This simple function goes through the entire category list in column A and returns the number of occurrences of the value “Directory”—easy, simple, and fast.

Find Category Totals

Let’s say you executed a link-building campaign to strengthen the backlink portfolio of your client, and you know the amount of sales revenue each of those websites generated.

But do you know which category drove the biggest impact? In order to find the answer to this question, use the following SUMIF function as shown in the screenshot below:

=SUMIFS(C2:C6, A2:A6, "Directory")

The function sums the values in column C (C2:C6) based on whether or not a given cell in the column belongs to the “Directory” category (A2:A6).

Additionally, you can quickly chart the data using the Quick Analysis tool to get a more granular picture.

Over to You

Armed with these simple yet powerful Excel hacks, you can work with massive volumes of data a lot more effectively since each of the techniques demonstrated in this tutorial can be easily applied to lists from ten to ten thousand rows long.

If you’re looking to take your digital PR campaign to the next level, get in touch today and schedule a free consultation.